Forex reserve hits $45.1b, a new record

The country's foreign exchange reserves today hit a new record of $45.1 billion thanks to the upward trend of remittance and lower import payments.

The reserves, one of the major macroeconomic indicators of an economy, went up 36.22 per cent in the last one year as the figure stood at $33.11 billion on April 30 in 2020, according to data from the central bank.

A strong inflow of remittance has largely helped the country build up the foreign exchange reserve, a Bangladesh Bank official said.

Between July and April this fiscal year, the Bangladeshi diaspora sent remittances worth $20.66 billion, up 39 per cent year-on-year.

Imports, however, slightly increased 1.9 percent year-on-year to $37.06 billion in the first eight months of this fiscal year.

The growth of import has maintained a feeble trend in recent months, which is not expected given the country's economic volume, the official said.

This has helped push the foreign exchange reserve up as well.

But, the 45-billion mark of the reserve will not sustain for long as the country will have to pay $1.74 billion tomorrow to settle import payments to the member countries of the Asian Clearing Union (ACU).

The ACU is an arrangement by which the participants settle payments for intra-regional transactions among the participating central banks on a net multilateral basis.

Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are members of the ACU headquartered in Tehran.